Responding to two of the posts above, I submit that the word “average” can only be properly understood in the context of other keepers in the same data set...that is, other keepers in the PL.
We can confidently assert that Alisson and Ederson were superior to De Gea the previous two seasons, but I hope there is agreement here that Alisson has been shocking this season, at least by his standards. Ederson has been very solid this season, though I’m sure he’s made a few mistakes but no keeper goes a full season without making a few mistakes.
Beyond those two, there’s really no one in the league who’s been clearly and consistently superior to De Gea. You can argue several at his level, such as Schmeichel, but quite a few below De Gea’ as level. I wouldn’t swap Dave for Pope, Lloris, Pickford, Patricio or Leno. It’s just absurd to argue that Dave is an average keeper when he’s clearly in the top quintile in what is arguably the most competitive league on the planet.
The real issue are that Dave is off his peak of three seasons ago, he’s on massive wages, and we have a very promising keeper as his backup.
I would have no problem offloading Dave this summer and let Dean run with it, but let’s not delude ourselves into believing that Dean is the superior keeper today.
If we do give the job to Dean we should prepare ourselves to witness bad mistakes that will cost us points as he grows into the job, one of the most demanding and intensely scrutinized jobs in all of sport — starting keeper for Manchester United.
If we’re going to launch a proper PL trophy run next season we should keep Dave, who has vastly greater experience and is the superior keeper today. But if the master plan is to build the squad to the point where we make that run in 22/23 (we shall assess the board’s commitment to trophies by its actions this summer) then we of course we should offload Dave now, give Dean the experience he needs in 21/22.